When: Released November 10, 1975
Why? I’ve never heard a Patti Smith song, and she and this album are frequently cited as having planted the seeds for what would become punk music.
What? Eight songs, 43 minutes.
First Impressions: This is one of those times when I fear that it’s nearly impossible to base a judgment on a single listen. But here goes…
This is contemporary poetry of the highest order, often delivered in poetry-slam style with a conviction and insistence that demands we listen. But it isn’t out to shock (necessarily) or be abrasively in your face: It’s insistent not out of anger or rebellion but because the messages seem so personally important to the artist behind the words.
While most of these songs are lengthy, I never felt that any were overlong. They are telling stories with multiple layers, often delivered in multiple sections, that rise and fall, push and pull. There is an hallucinatory quality to much of the imagery here, which will certainly reward deep and repeated listening.
Apple Music—and every reviewer I’ve read—labels this album “punk.” But if you expect Sex Pistols, you’ll be disappointed. As the Apple Music liner notes state, “Calling Horses one of the first statements in punk begs the question of what punk is: A sound? An attitude? A political orientation? A stylistic one? In some ways, Smith was a traditionalist.” That’s most clear in the instrumentation, which can be surprisingly spare, artfully interacting with Smith’s lyrics.
Here, “punk” has nothing to do with the sound, which is sometimes tinged with Fifties jazz, sometimes Seventies rock. Instead, it’s an attitude, a willingness to break down barriers and kick open doors. Consider the opener, “Gloria,” a cover song. Smith takes a raw-sounding popular track by Van Morrison’s band Them and turns it on its head—adding multiple new verses of her own storytelling and flipping the song’s gender to create something truly thrilling.
This feels corny to say, but each song here truly is a multifaceted jewel.
In addition to “Gloria,” highlights for me include “Redondo Beach,” the hallucinatory journey of “Birdland,” “Kimberly” (this song in particular made me think Smith’s vocal delivery was a strong influence on Blondie’s Debbie Harry), and “Land.”
So? Almost 50 years on from its initial release, this album still feels both fresh and relevant. I have no doubt that it will reward multiple plays over the course of many years. It is true, timeless art.